In a recent interview, a Hollywood director recalled the time that famed actor Jeff Bridges gave him a scare by getting high on marijuana right before filming a crucial scene as the president of the United States in the 2000 film The Contender—a performance for which Bridges was later nominated for an Academy Award.
Rod Lurie told the story at a Clinton Presidential Center conference about American presidential elections about how he filmed a speech for the actor. The Dude, the character portrayed by The Dude, was a famous stoner in The Big Lebowski.
Jeff Bridges’ speech will be huge at the very end. Lurie explained that the production had hired hundreds of extras and rented the Virginia Statehouse to stand in as the U.S. Capitol for the day.
Problem: Jeff is stuck in his trailer and won’t leave.
Lurie told reporters that after sending an assistant and an intern to the actor’s home, he eventually knocked himself on Bridges’s door.
“The director opened the door and was taken aback by this enormous cloud of marijuana.” The director said, “This thing has blown me backwards.”
“I said, ‘Jeff, you’ve got a three page speech to give,'” Lurie said. It’s hilarious watching him get into his costume. How does a drunk person put on clothing? And I’m going, ‘Oh my god, we’re so screwed. We’re dead. This is my second film. “I’m not going to do any more work.
“Jeff is going, ‘Hey man!'” Lurie continued. “He says, ‘Have you had the cobbler at Emily Shaw’s Inn at Pound Ridge? The food was so delicious.
“I go, ‘Jeff, do you know your lines?’ He goes, ‘What lines?'” “The director replied. Then we enter the room. “He walks in, and sees everything. He goes, ‘Dude, there are a lot of people here.'”
Lurie told the story in a way that made it clear the director was worried Bridges’s marijuana use might derail filming. However, the situation changed the minute he said the word “action.”
“And then—boom!—he completely changes,” Lurie said of Bridges’s performance. “Becomes super-presidential. Delivers speech and nails it. Half a year later—’And the nominees are: Jeff Bridges in The Contender.'”
Bridges did not win an Oscar in 2001 for the role of best supporting actor. He won the award for the best actor for the film Crazy Heart, released in 2009.
The Dude, played by the actor in The Big Lebowski said in previous years that he chose not to smoke marijuana.
“I’ll burn some herb occasionally, but for that film I decided, ‘This is such a wonderful script, and quite detailed,'” he told Yahoo In a 2014 Interview. While it appears to be improvised, the whole thing is scripted. The whole thing was exactly done. [as written]. If you add an extra ‘man’ in a spot, it didn’t quite feel right. It was important to me that I had all my brains in order. “I didn’t get burned at all while watching that film.”
Lurie did not only praise Bridges during an event at the Clinton Presidential Center. Lurie also called the late actor Peter Fonda “a hippie in total.”
Director: “This man was high every day that we shot.” “I was like, ‘Oh my god, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.'”
Image element provided by Gage Skidmore.
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